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F.R.O. - any positive feedback?

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  • #16
    I can't tell for sure if the stamped/certified copies of final orders for support and costs are FRO enforced. I know the CS/SS order IS - but not sure about the Costs Order - payable to me: by June 11. (Judge gave him 6 months). All the stamped costs order says is due: June 11 (in full) and interest of 3% applicable. My (former) lawyer says he "thinks" the costs are FRO-enforced.

    The other sentence I'm not clear on, is on the CS/SS order it states "Support Deduction Order to be issued." (When, and by whom?) The Courts did not request a list of his clients (income sources) to my knowledge. He is self-employed.

    So I called FRO once I rec'd the stamped orders and they said to send it in to them b/c the Courts may take another 3-4 months to do so. So I did - that same day (about a week and a half ago).

    I'm estimating that FRO will begin enforcing (or "trying" to) by about June. I know initially, that ex will completely ignore any/all contact from them. Should be interesting.

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    • #17
      Hi as the payor of support I can tell you that if you do not have an employer to be deducted from they simply ask you to complete a direct debit or in my case I sent chqs. It really is the only way they can as you cant deduct from income unless it is beig earned from a regular source(employer) that does deductions as needed for EI taxes etc. All but the current one were returned so I have to send every month. As I mentioned the current chq was issued to FRO and it took six or so months and I paid from the date in full then monthly. I had an awful time with them as they sent me close to 20 letters and I was not in arrears as I paid as soon as I had the info. It was nasty and totally mixed up on their part so likely they will put a great deal of pressure on payor. Also if you dont have employer send you something saying they will take it from Her Majesty the Queen which means federal government monies the person may be receiving. I was on LTD from my job at the time but havent sent them any info about my employer. Honestly I think it is personal and if someone is always up to date they should not have to have garnishment as it looks like you didnt pay. FRO told me that is the way it is now done. As I joint parent and given the variables it is not really equitable but my lawyer suggested I agree as anyone on social benefits will be hauled to court over it anyway, costing more in the long run. My ex now receives disability so much higher and I have extra expenses, mortgage etc he doesnt. I had come to terms with it but FROs treatment of me was horrendous and I did nothing to desrve it. It was so stressful after going through all that prior! Given there mistakes I wasnt about to do direct debit who knows, initially they tried to get lump payment from me twice!!
      The payor will face numerous problems if he fails to pay, I assume given my experience and some of their threats. They continue to request direct from my account and I continue to mail chqs. I believe that likely you will get your money if the payor is capable of it

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      • #18
        Just an update;
        FRO only rec'd the stamped orders in Mid-March, 2012. So, I call every week just to see if anything is happening. The answer: Nope. I'm told "another 2 weeks" or so. The (fro) explanation being that there's about 3 months for them to process and scan the info into their system. The other thing I've learned quickly is that you get a different answer every time you call. So.. what I do understand is that - they have ALL my info (orders and Registration info) but it is not yet assigned a case worker/7-digit number. ** fingers tapping ** I guess we'll see if I get "assigned" a case number. (They called me April 23rd just to confirm they rec'd everything)

        On a positive note: I do find they answer the phone quickly and have never been on hold for more than 3 or 4 minutes. I don't know why I'm so 'excited' for their involvement anyway - he's not going to cooperate w/them and it will be a rough ride, even with their hands in this.

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        • #19
          FRO has finally made contact w/me and sent the welcome package. Case #, pin # (mailed separately) - the whole ball of wax. Now the long wait is over but a new 'wait' begins. So the way they do it now, is each person has their own (FRO) case worker. Apparently, that was not the way they did things before. Have had 1 brief chat with my case worker. So far, so good. I know ex won't cooperate so I'm sure they will need to pull out all their enforcement tools in no time. I've taken the liberty of faxing FRO a list of most of ex's income sources. He is self-employed. They say they have to "give him the benefit of the doubt" - that he'll just cooperate. It aint going to happen.

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          • #20
            In Alberta "costs" gets added to your s/s or c/s and shows up on statement when you sign in as charges payable by ex.

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            • #21
              I forced us into FRO. I am the Payor, and we were not in it for awhile. It started getting increasingly hard to get recipts from her, she said that she did not have a bank account any longer as I used to send CS through the bank so there was a very clear paper trail. I gave her cash (stupidly) twice and did not get a recipt, she did not give me one and I was silly I know. Then I started giving her cheques and she cashed them significantly early. I was told by the bank that a post dated cheque does not have to be cashed on the date that it is posted, and can be cashed anytime at all. So I forced us into FRO. Things went well for a year, except she complained that she no longer for her CS on the 15th, as FRO took 2 days to process. So I got an email every month wondering where it was on the 16th lol, actually I still do and it has been 3 years.
              After 1 year of things going well, we are in court and in one of our conference briefs she files a notice of arrears for 3 months when I paid cash to her. I had proof of 1 of the months as backup, and could show that I took out the exact amount of money at an ATM on my way to her place. Since it was a conference it was decided that all arrears will be dealt with at a later time as my ex was obviously confused and her lawyer did not want to deal with my proof. At the next conference she did not bring anything up about arrears and we moved forward on other issues. By the way, her notice of arrears was never signed and not served properly.
              FRO is now trying to enforce it and is causing me a giant amount of trouble because of this. Guess you can throw a notice of arrears in with a settlement conference brief, not sign it or anything and not serve it correctly and they will enforce. They refuse to give me a default hearing and are trying to take all my income tax money. They are great.

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              • #22
                I think a lot depends upon who you have as case worker. My case worker has been very supportive. He always calls me back within a day or two if I leave a message and sometimes even on the same day.

                He went on vacation for a couple of weeks and it was a nightmare dealing with the person who took on his cases. She sounded really stressed, was very rude and refused to take any action.

                Unfortunately, in my case the payor is in significant arrears and enforcement action has been escalated to suspension of a driving license should he fail to come up with a payment plan within the next 30 days. Hopefully, "he might" consider paying the arrears when faced with the real possibility of having his license suspended.
                Last edited by Nadia; 06-08-2012, 09:59 PM.

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                • #23
                  Just my own little update: thus far (but it's early days) FRO sucks ass. There has been no enforcement action and now the X is not sending CS/SS to me or to them. Right now they are in the "giving him the benefit of the doubt" stage. I have now entered the biggest pinch of all (financially). Hell, I'm even considering OW. I'm disgusted and frustrated

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                  • #24
                    Hopefully Ontario will improve their system. In Alberta we can go online 24-7 and see all payments made over many years, including interest, costs, etc. Eliminates need to call in and talk to anyone and you get a print out for court or tax filing whenever you need it.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Tayken View Post
                      Given two reasonable parents using the FRO shouldn't be a problem.
                      Originally posted by NBDad View Post
                      Given two reasonable parents, the FRO shouldn't be necessary at all. They exist solely because not everyone is reasonable and people, more often than not are stupid. (I work in IT, I'm biased...so sue me)
                      Given two reasonable parties - Court wouldn't be necessary in the first place. If you're before the court - chances are one or both parties are unreasonable.

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                      • #26
                        ^ no, not "chances are" - more like GUARANTEED one or both parties is unreasonable and in some cases, just plain nuts!

                        So wth do do now? Mortgage will be late, and I have NO idea when I will recv any money. Great start to the summer holiday. Please note: ex has the ability to make proper and in full/on time payments. He is doing this on purpose. I know FRO is not going to move any faster on him simply b/c I ask them to. This is f*kt. He has old arrears of over 25k and new arrears piling up (already a few thousand). But let's give him the "benefit of the doubt" (FRO's words).

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                        • #27
                          Sorry to hear this Hadenough.

                          But I am not all that surprised that FRO is giving him the benefit of the doubt and giving you the run around. All I can advise is that you have to keep calling them.

                          In my case the arrears are related to daycare, speech therapy, hearing aids and ongoing child support.

                          The last time I spoke to FRO I was informed they were escalating matters to give the payor the option of 1) Come up with a plan to pay off the arrears or 2) face having a driving license suspended.

                          However, they wanted to speak to him before they sent out the letter with 30 day warning.

                          They then informed me that they couldn't get hold of him, despite attempting to call him several times at different times during the day and different days. I am assuming he was avoiding the calls. Several messages were left on his answering machine but no response. Finally, when they were able to get hold of him, he informed them he had some paperwork that he would be submitting which would reduce the arrears. I am not sure where this paperwork was 8 months ago when the arrears were first brought to his attention and FRO started enforcement steps. In any case, we have to wait for this paperwork to materialize before FRO can go ahead with further enforcement.

                          I really empathize with you. It isn't easy having to manage on a tight or no budget. We've been in that position for the past three years and it isn't easy trying to juggle payments every month.

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                          • #28
                            I have zero positive feedback on the FRO.

                            I think that it's stupid to have to go to court to get arrears adjusted. I think that the FRO should automatically table your income based off your income tax every year. Such as how the OCTB works.

                            I've written a financial statement in Sept. 2011 and volunteer agreement to pay arrears off. I never heard back from them. Everytime I called, I never got the same person either. Which was a pain.

                            They write me a suspension of my license. Then 5 days later I get a notice that in 14 days they will be garnishing wages at 50%. I didn't have a chance to reply. In 7 days, my wages were garnished by my employer. I'm not opposed to the garnishment, because I want to pay the arrears, however, when I send them material, they don't get back to me.

                            So I've filed yet another financial statement and volunteer agreement to pay off arrears. Now they are dicking around with me saying it takes 2 weeks to receive mail (even though I put a tracking # on my package) and it says its there. Then I was told after receiving the mail it takes 10 business days to scan into their system where my case worker can see it and review it. This is unacceptable. They take action immediately, but when you submit action to have it decreased, so that you can make at least 10.25 a hour, versus garnishing to where I make 7.50 an hour. They take forever. Where is the justice in these situations?

                            I told my case worker today, well if you don't hurry up then I won't be able to make my car payment at the end of the month, then I won't have a job, and that means FRO gets no more money from me. So let's do both ourselves a favor and speed the process up.

                            Immediately said to fax over the information. I said I couldn't because it's 50 pages! Not really, but it's alot. And he said he didn't need everything. I assured him he did, because I don't need them to deny my financial statement at this time. So attached is all the proof of my bills. Plus, I sent the original commissioned paper. If I were to fax, I wouldn't be able to the original. It's frustrating. As you can see. I hate the FRO with a passion.

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                            • #29
                              They do take several days to "scan" info in, that's true. But you have a case contact and should always be reaching the SAME person. I speak to one person only. Do you use the automated info-line service? It's 24 hrs a day and regularly updated. You need your PIN # handy. I'd fax over whatever you can. It's the quickest way. They are also overhauling their computer system so I'm *hoping* that means that SOON, info can be accessed/tracked on-line.

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                              • #30
                                It takes time because you aren't the only person they're dealing with. Do you actually expect that as soon as you send something they will be processing it?

                                Funny that you couldn't find the time in SEVEN days to reply when the only paperwork you need to worry about it yours, yet you object to them take 10 - 14 days to get to your paperwork through the hundreds of cases they are dealing with.

                                They arent' taking action 'immediately', their process is in the works long before you even hear about it. Grow up and take some responsibility for the situation YOU have created. Stop blaming the system for your failings.

                                Comment

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